Maher: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims ‘Applaud’ Murder for Insulting Mohammed

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on ABC, HBO “Real Time” host Bill Maher criticized the religion of Islam in the wake of the terrorist attack on the headquarters of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in 12 dead.

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According to Maher, there is no denying the connection of Islam to the attack.

“It’s not a presume – no, no it’s Muslim terrorists,” Maher said. “This happens way too frequently. It’s like it’s like Groundhog Day, except the groundhog kept getting his head cut off. Let’s also give some credit to this newspaper. This was a satirical newspaper in Paris. These guys have the balls of the Eiffel Tower. Their balls were bigger than Gérard Depardieu, because they kept doing it.”

“For the crime of being satirists, for the crime of drawing cartoons. this has to stop, and unfortunately, a lot of the liberals, who are my tribe, I am a proud liberal,” he said. “No, I’m not turning on them, I’m asking them to turn toward the truth as I have been for quite a while. I’m the liberal in this debate. I’m for free speech. To be a liberal, you have to stand up for liberal principles. It’s not my fault that the part of the world that is against liberal principles is the Muslim part of the world. There have been studies. We have facts on this. Treatment of women. They studied 130 different countries. Seventeen of the bottom 20 were Muslim countries. In 10 Muslim countries, you can get the death penalty just before being gay. They chop heads off in the square in Mecca. Well, Mecca is their Vatican City. If they were chopping the heads off of catholic gay people, wouldn’t there be a bigger outcry among liberals? I ask you. So to bring it home to us, because we are are satirists, and I deal with this subject particularly, it’s kind of scary, that some people say you cannot make a joke. That’s off-limits. We saw this with Kim Jong-un.”

Maher admitted his disdain for religion but added there was a difference in the religions for which he holds contempt.

“[I] know most Muslim people would not have carried out an attack like this,” Maher said. “But here’s the important point — hundreds of millions of them support an attack like this. They applaud an attack like this. What they say is, we don’t approve of violence, but when you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off.”

“That is mainstream in the Muslim world,” he added. “When you make fun of the prophet, all bets are off. It’s also mainstream that if you leave the religion you get what’s coming to you, which is death. Not in every Muslim country, not in the majority but this is a problem we have to stand up to. And again, I’m the liberal in this debate. I was brought up in a liberal family. The reason we were liberals is because we were against depression. I was a little kid when my father told us, we’re with Kennedy and against the southern governors who stand in the doorways and don’t let black kids go to school. And all my life I’ve been for people who have been the downtrodden, the oppressed, the minorities. I’ve been for blacks, gays, women, Mexicans, whoever it is.